Petroleum is facing declining global reserves and contributes to more than 30% of greenhouse gas emissions driving global warming. Annually 800 billion barrels of transportation fuel are consumed globally. Diesel and jet fuels account for greater than 50% of global transportation fuels.
Significant legislation has been passed, requiring fuel producers to cap or reduce the carbon emissions from the production and use of transportation fuels. Fuel producers are seeking substantially similar, low carbon fuels that can be blended and distributed through existing infrastructure (e.g., refineries, pipelines, tankers).
Due to increasing petroleum costs and reliance on petrochemical feedstocks, the chemical industry is also looking for ways to improve margin and price stability, while reducing its environmental footprint. The chemical industry is striving to develop greener products that are more energy, water, and CO2 efficient than current products. Fuels produced from biological sources, such as biomass, represent one aspect of that process.
Many present methods for converting biomass into biofuels focus on the use of lignocellulolic biomass. However, there are many problems associated with using this process. Large-scale cultivation of lignocellulolic biomass requires a substantial amount of cultivated land, which can be only achieved by replacing food crop production with energy crop production, deforestation, and by recultivating currently uncultivated land. Other problems include a decrease in water availability and quality as well as an increase in the use of pesticides and fertilizers.
The degradation of lignocellulolic biomass using biological systems presents a significant challenge due to its substantial mechanical strength and the complex chemical components. Approximately thirty different enzymes are required to fully convert lignocellulose to monosaccharides. The only available alternate to this complex approach requires a substantial amount of heat, pressure, and strong acids. The art therefore needs an economic and technically simple process for converting biomass into hydrocarbons for use as biofuels or biopetrols. U.S. application Ser. Nos. 12/245,537 and 12/245,540 describe the use of recombinant microorganisms to produce various biofuels from biomass, and also describe the use of such recombinant microorganisms to produce various aldehydes, such as butyraldehyde and isobutyraldehyde, from biomass derived saccharides.
2,2,4-Trimethylpentane, also known as isooctane, is an octane isomer that defines the 100 point on the octane rating scale. Isooctane represents an important component of gasoline. Isooctane is produced on a massive scale in the petroleum industry, often as a mixture with related hydrocarbons. The petroleum industry typically relies on the alkylation process to produce isooctane, which alkylates isobutane with isobutylene using a strong acid catalyst.
Moreover, existing petroleum reserves are less and less useful for gasoline because of low octane content, and the ability to add octane can increase the useability of current petroleum reserves. The art therefore needs an environmentally friendly and technically simple process for producing isooctane, as well as other related biofuels.